


Luke Triton and a Gentleman's Exile

by a_mere_trifle



Series: Professor Layton and the Gentleman's Treason [2]
Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: American-British relations, Bullying, Elementary School, Friendship, Gen, Gifted children, how I spent my summer vacation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-05-02 22:43:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14555136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_mere_trifle/pseuds/a_mere_trifle
Summary: Luke's schoolmates are bullies, his parents distracted, and even his teacher doesn't believe a word he says. He's an ocean away from half the people he cares about, Bill Hawks is still Prime Minister, and there isn't a single thing he can do about it. A gentleman exhibits grace under such pressure, the Professor would tell him. He wishes the Professor could tell himhow. But he's going to have to figure that one out on his own. Or perhaps with a little help from his friends...





	1. Chapter 1

Luke stood, and walked to the front of the classroom, where he regarded his foes with a steely glare. Those Two in the back were already laughing. He was a gentleman, and a gentleman did not care what childish bullies thought. 

Mrs. Shavers had a pained look on her face. Luke did not care. "What I Did," he enunciated, "On My Summer Vacation."

There was another ripple of laughter through the audience. He read the subtitle: "The True and Accurate Facts, Despite the Fact That None of You Lot Will Believe Me." Including the teacher, he didn't add. He was in enough trouble already. But a gentleman didn't lie.

"Late last summer, I was in London, an apprentice to the Great Professor Layton. Professor Layton is a top scholar of archaeology, and one of the most brilliant minds in London. His talent for puzzle-solving is unmatched."

He hadn't ever mentioned what the answer to the puzzle of getting punched in the face was, but that was one Luke was determined not to ask for hints for.

"One day, we received a mysterious note. It claimed to have been written by me, ten years in the future! It said that there was a terrible problem in his time that only we could solve."

"Yeah, the problem of you growing up into the biggest nerd on the planet."

"Jason!" the teacher reprimanded.

Luke ignored the small-minded heckler. "The letter directed us to an ordinary clock shop, which housed an extraordinary machine. When it was activated, it appeared that we had been taken to London of the future!"

"Oh, please."

"This London," Luke continued, resolute, "was ruled by a degenerate crime syndicate who--"

"Could somebody please get the dictionary back out of his--"

"--claimed to be led by Professor Layton in the future! Obviously only the Professor himself could defeat such a nemesis. My future self guided us through--"

"Can we time travel to recess yet?"

"--the city." Luke had decided to skip over some details. Usually, the class was laughing or jeering too loudly to hear any of them, anyway. "Eventually we discovered that the future Professor was a sham! The entire thing had been a ruse to lure us in! The city was not in the future-- it was underground! And the boy claiming to be me was, in fact, a criminal mastermind bent on destroying London in his quest for revenge!"

"Dear God, the boy's weirder than I am." Not one of the usual voices, he thought, but there were so many usual voices that Luke wasn't sure. He plowed on regardless.

"This imposter had created a giant, moving fortress that broke through to the surface! Luckily, we had managed to sneak our way on board and--"

"I so saw that movie last week--"

The bell rang, and Luke swallowed the rest of his sentence, as the rest of the class immediately began to line up for recess. Mrs. Shavers had probably chosen him last deliberately, but on the whole, Luke wasn't sure he could complain about that. 

"Luke--" called Mrs. Shavers. "Would you stay behind for a moment, please?"

He heard a ripple of poorly-suppressed laughter, mostly from Those Two, but it was distracted and diminished in anticipation of their coming freedom. Mrs. Shavers pushed past the line to open the door, and the class rushed joyously outside to the nearby playground.

"Now, Luke," Mrs. Shavers sighed, lowering herself wearily onto her desk chair. "You know that we've talked about this before."

"You asked what I did on my summer vacation," Luke said, stubborn. "This report is the plain and unvarnished truth."

"Luke..." Mrs. Shavers shook her head. "There is no such thing as time travel."

"Of course not, anymore. And we'd best keep it that way."

"There isn't a gigantic replica of London underneath the city."

"Not anymore there isn't," Luke agreed. "It was pretty devastated by the collapse."

"There is no such thing as a giant... moving fortress."

"What do you think destroyed five neighbourhoods, then?" Luke folded his arms, annoyed.

"Luke, it's disrespectful to make such grand embellishments on a terrorist attack. Real people died, you know."

"I do know! I was there!"

"Luke..." Mrs. Shavers pulled a newspaper out of her desk drawer. "I know England is very far away, but we do get the news."

Luke looked at the front-page story. "TERRORIST BOMBING IN LONDON", it read. _Prime Minister Hawks called the country to rally together today after the terrorist bombing. "We are confident that this was the act of a lone terrorist," he said in his statement Monday. "He is safely in police custody, and his motives remain unknown."_

"Unknown, my eye!" Luke cried, leaning in closer. _Prime Minister Hawks urged a return to normalcy. "We will remain secure in our values and our freedoms, and not let this violence push us to rash actions." His party today reintroduced a bill to strengthen security measures, defeated a few months prior. Experts forecast it will now pass with little difficulty._

"So you see, Luke--"

"How is he still Prime Minister?! He was up to his eyeballs in it! He blew up that poor lab and that apartment building! He had the Professor beaten! He got elected using his dirty money! How is he still in office?!"

"But--!" Mrs. Shavers put her head in her hands. "Oh, never mind," she said. "Just go."

"Yes, ma'am." Luke turned, then looked back. "May I borrow that newspaper, though, ma'am?"

"Keep it," said the teacher, voice muffled.

Luke snatched it up, leaving as quickly as was within the bounds of polite behaviour. They'd pick on him for reading over recess, but this was a puzzle, and he simply couldn't leave it behind.


	2. Chapter 2

Luke glared at the wall. He hated the dining room wallpaper. It was stupid and it was ugly, like most of the rest of this bloody country.

"Luke..." said his mother.

"It was true," said Luke.

"I know it was," Brenda said, with a sigh. "But Luke, couldn't you have just written about... one of the symposiums you and the professor attended, or a picnic, or something?"

Luke glared at the wall. Such delicate editing of the facts was tantamount to lying. He felt this very strongly, but couldn't figure out how to say it in a way she might respect. "It's not like it would've helped," he muttered. "They don't even believe in the Professor."

"I've told your teacher that Professor Layton is real."

"I don't think they believe in her, either."

Luke's mother ran a hand through her hair. He wasn't finished. "I don't think they even really believe in London, and that's in the geography books."

"They're just children, Luke," said Brenda. "Children don't always understand new things."

"I understand new things."

"Not all children are like you."

"I guess they're right, then," said Luke. "I am a freak."

"Luke, just give it time," said his mother, sounding a little desperate. "They'll grow accustomed to you, and the better ones will get to know you. You promised me you'd give it time."

Luke nodded. He had. He had promised to give it six months, and a gentleman never broke his promises.

He slipped off the chair and walked to the calendar on the wall. He uncapped the pen that hung next to it, and, in neat capital letters, wrote the same thing that was written on every weekday's square for the past three weeks. Polite, but as yet unwavering, the calendar read: "I STILL WANT TO BE HOME-SCHOOLED."

"I have homework to do," he said, recapping the pen, and headed for the stairs.

Brenda spared the letters a glance, sighed heavily, and headed for the liquor cabinet under the stairs.

In his room, Luke grabbed a piece of paper and pen, hopping immediately on his desk chair. He had math homework, but that was very much a secondary priority. It should hardly take more than thirty seconds, anyway. He tapped the pen against his lip, thinking. He could write the Professor-- but would the Professor tell him? He'd probably just tell him to stay safe at home and study hard, like a young gentleman. The Professor liked to protect people from unpleasant truths when it was possible. And he didn't want the Professor thinking he was unhappy, either; he had enough problems without worrying about Luke. But who could he ask, then? Whose address did he even know?

Five seconds, and the answer came to him in a flash.

_Dear Flora,_

_I hope you are well. School is kind of terrible but I am doing fine. Some kids are nice, but there's a couple who are absolute jerks, and no one believes a single word I say. Please don't tell the Professor, though. I only want to write him once I'm happy and settled._

_I heard something strange today, though. My teacher showed me the London newspapers, and all they said was that Clive blew up London! They say Bill Hawks is still Prime Minister! They said that he was even using it to get support for some bills or something he wanted! What on earth is going on with that? How could it be possible?_

_I guess I should write more, but I would either complain about school, or keep asking how on earth that scoundrel can still be in office, so I guess that would be redundant. Please write back SOON with the explanation. I hope you are doing well and I miss your cooking. Okay, the fish loaf was awful, but you were getting pretty good at the cookies, and you're much nicer company than anyone at my stupid school I've found. Just never make that fish loaf again. The robots lied to you. I don't think they had a sense of taste to start with, so it wasn't their fault, but don't believe them._

_Sincerely,_

_Luke_

Luke nodded decisively. But even if he got this out tonight, and Flora answered the second she got it, it would be more than a week before he heard back. It was so frustrating, being stuck so far away, unable to do anything, not even knowing what was going on, not sure anyone would even bother to tell him--

Huh. Luke frowned, stared into space for a minute, and set his pen back to the page.

_P.S. You were right. Being left behind is the worst. Sorry._

He folded the letter and sealed the envelope around it. One of these days, he'd get a wax stamp of his own-- but today wasn't that day. He'd put the letter out tonight, but if he wanted his homework done before supper, even he might have to hurry.


	3. Chapter 3

"Your assignment will be on American History," Mr. Jones had said, while Luke heroically resisted the urge to groan. "I've assigned you each to groups of three and four. And I'm not shuffling you around so you can be with your friends, either. Tomorrow, I'll have rearranged the desks so you can spend the period planning with your group. After that, we'll have group meetings in class once per week. Any work outside of school, you must coordinate on your own."

So today Luke had sat down at his slightly rickety old desk-- probably still the same one; it had the same squeak and ugly orange plastic chair-- and waited for his new teammates with trepidation. He wasn't familiar enough with the class to quite recognize the names of his two teammates, but they were both girls, so at least he'd escaped the nightmare of being stuck working with one of the creeps who kept kicking him and making strange citrus jokes after school. 

He hadn't much to do for the first minute but stare at the name tags, the folded triangular prisms they'd made for themselves the first week of class. Hannah Sardin's name was printed in a loopy, fluent cursive, slightly shaky, but neat. Penny Bishop's was printed in precise, spiky cursive, i dotted with a slash. The paper was a slightly different color than Luke's, he noted, with a sigh; he might have arrived close to the beginning of the school year, but he was still a latecomer, doubly or triply or who knew how many ways by now marked as different. Then again, he couldn't feel too badly about being different from this lot.

A movement caught his eye; a faintly bewildered-looking girl was winding her way toward the desks in his direction. She was wearing some sort of denim pinafore dress over leggings, her glasses seemed half as big as her face, and her black hair was gradually escaping its long braid. The girl squinted at the namecards, then dropped her enormous backpack with a sigh, sitting down at Hannah Sardin's desk. 

"Hello," Luke offered. "I'm Luke. Luke Triton." He offered his hand, feeling silly; she could see the name cards.

The girl blinked at him, extending her own hand. "Hannah Sardin," she answered. "Though I guess you probably knew that."

"I did kind of guess, yes." Luke paused as Hannah bent down, digging around in her backpack; a few moments later, she had emerged with a paperback book. She opened it to a bookmark, somewhere over halfway through. Luke knew class hadn't technically started yet, but this still seemed vaguely rude to him. "Er... what are you reading?"

She looked up, blinking owlishly. "I don't know."

Luke was saved from the struggle of not asking how the devil one could get halfway through a book without knowing what it was by a loud and exasperated "Oh dear God!" He looked up; a shorter, thinner girl in a neat dress was glaring at them both, shoulder-length honey-brown hair swishing as she alternated her glare between Luke and Hannah. "I cannot believe this."

There was something odd about her voice; Luke marked it down to some American accent he couldn't place. "Excuse me?"

"This is just great. Biggest group project of the class and I'm stuck with the class weirdo and my archnemesis." Penny Bishop sat down at her desk in a huff.

"Er, which am I?" said Hannah. Penny just shot her a vicious glare.

"Maybe I like being a weirdo," said Luke, sick of trying to deny it.

"Fair cop, I suppose it's kind of nice having someone around who's weirder than me," said Penny, and Luke remembered her voice, saying something similar while he gave his doomed speech on his summer vacation. "Except for Hannah, but Hannah's such a _boring_ weird."

"I'm not sure if I should be insulted," said Hannah, a faint note of genuine confusion in her voice.

"That's your entire problem!"

Luke just shook his head. These two clearly had some sort of history, and he doubted he wanted to get involved in it. "At any rate, we're pretty well stuck together now."

"I could pretend to catch measles," said Penny, thoughtfully. "Or actually catch measles. Perhaps if I hung out in a doctor's office..."

"So I guess we've got to try to get along," Luke continued. Sometimes, he had learned in his travels, it was best to just ignore people. "So I'm Luke Triton. I'm from England."

"Everybody knows that," said Penny, rolling her eyes. "Even Hannah knows that."

"I did know that," Hannah admitted.

"And Hannah doesn't pay attention to _anybody_."

"I listen a lot!" Hannah exclaimed.

"You're from England and you were the Apprentice of the Great Professor Layton," Penny continued, with a rather insultingly poor imitation of his accent. "Who apparently knows everything and is basically Sherlock Holmes in professorial disguise."

"Not this again. The Professor is real!" Luke barely stopped himself from shouting; if he weren't in America, he was fairly certain heads would have turned. As it was, the classroom was filled with animated conversations already.

Penny sniffed. "Of course he's real, Mum says he's not a bad archaeologist at all."

"My mom says he's quite good," Hannah piped up.

"Your parents know about the professor?" Luke blinked, disarmed.

"My parents are university professors," Penny said airily.

"Mine work at the college, too," said Hannah.

"It's a _university_ , Hannah."

"Everyone calls it a college, what's the point of confusing them?"

"Well." Luke frowned. "At least the two of you believe me."

"Of course," said Hannah, as Penny said, "I wouldn't go that far."

Luke decided to ignore that. "Well, I moved away when my parents did. They work at the university too."

"Your dad is bossy," said Penny.

"He used to be a mayor," said Luke, resisting the urge to glare at her. It wasn't like he'd never had anything bad to say about the man.

"Your mom gossips too much," said Hannah.

Penny threw an eraser at her.

"It's true! It's always this guy did this or this person did that, and it isn't very nice."

"Scholars don't care about _nice_ , they care about _true_ ," said Penny.

"Value judgments aren't truth, though..."

"Attention!" said Mr. Jones, his voice cutting through the chatter. The background noise abated somewhat, though a rebellious murmur continued regardless. "I am handing out your topics and the group instructions. If you have any questions after reading the instructions, raise your hand. Remember, you'll have Fridays in class to meet, but any other work will be on your own time."

Mr. Jones made his way through the desks, handing out papers; Luke took theirs when he passed by. "All right," he said, studying it. "Looks like we're to report on... oh, lovely. The 'American Revolution'. He did that on _purpose_."

"I'll be sure to dump your tea in the retaining pond out back," said Penny. 

"I would never do anything to your tea," Hannah reassured him.

"We'll have everyone dress up, it'll be extra credit." Penny raised a sardonic eyebrow at her.

"I would never do anything to your tea without your permission," Hannah amended.

Luke laughed; his life was increasingly ridiculous, and ridicule was the only appropriate response. Still, while these girls were quite possibly lunatics, they seemed clever and potentially responsible, and best of all, they were not Those Two-- so really, Luke wasn't doing too badly, on the whole.

"That's a broad topic, though," said Hannah.

"No matter, we'll summarize it to death. No one will be listening, anyway." Penny waved a hand dismissively. "So! How do we divvy this up?"

"Looks like there's a written report, and a display, and a presentation," said Luke.

"Please don't make me do the presentation," Hannah said instantly.

"She can do the written report, she's stupidly good at that when you can get her to focus." Ignoring Hannah's protest of "I focus all the time!", she continued, "Well, we'll all need to do some of the background work, but each of us can take the lead on one of those. You want the talk or the poster?"

Luke pondered this. "Talk," he said. "If that's all right?"

"That's perfect." She grinned, oddly deviously. Luke hoped that wasn't a bad sign. 

"So," he said, "we all do the research and figure out what we're doing the project on, Hannah gets the report together, Penny does the display, and I read the presentation. We're agreed?"

The other two nodded. As it had mostly been Penny's idea, and Hannah looked awfully relieved, Luke was confident that they were all content with the arrangement. "Can't do much research in class, though," he said, "and we should probably do at least some of that together, don't you think?"

"We'll meet at the library sometime on the weekend," said Penny. "Local or university?"

"You can meet people on the weekend?" Hannah blinked, looking genuinely confused.

"Honestly, Hannah, how can you be so smart and so incredibly dumb? Yes, you can meet people on the weekend!"

Hannah still looked uncertain. "I guess Mom would take me to either one..."

"Local," said Luke. His father would be at the other one. Plus, "It'll have more accessible resources."

"And we're less likely to shock the teacher." Penny nodded. "Two o'clock?"

"Sounds good to me. Done in time for tea." Luke looked at Hannah, who shrugged helplessly.

"Can you actually get a proper tea in this town?" Penny inquired.

"Maybe? Worst case, I can take you home. Which would hardly be worst case, I happen to be a master tea brewer. Or a master tea brewer's apprentice."

Penny raised an eyebrow. "I may have to call you on that."

"I could bring sandwiches," said Hannah. "Or scones, except I don't actually know what those are. They always sound good in the stories, though."

"They always sound dull in the stories," Penny scoffed.

"Scones are delicious," said Luke, biting out the correct pronunciation, "and you colonials are weird." 

Penny raised an eyebrow. "Oh, are we? Tell me more about your Professor, time-traveller boy."

"You know," said Luke, "as it's half an hour before the class ends, perhaps I shall. There was one day when the Professor received a strange letter..."

Penny slapped her forehead. "I asked for this," she muttered. Hannah just folded her arms on her desk, settling her head down on top of them, listening avidly.

It was a better reception than he usually got, these days, and talking about the Professor made him feel a little less far away. So, even if he was probably annoying them, Luke went on anyway.

"This letter invited us to help find a treasure, that was hidden in a most curious village..."


	4. Chapter 4

(-)

Luke's mother was more than happy to escort him to the town's library. Upon hearing that he was meeting with fellow students there, her enthusiasm became downright blinding. It was all Luke could do to persuade her not to enter and lavish gifts and praise upon his unknown "friends". He'd never called them friends, and found her eagerness to jump to that conclusion rather irritating. It was perfectly understandable; that was exactly why it was irritating.

As a boy raised by academics, he couldn't say the library particularly impressed him. It was slightly larger than Misthallery's, at least, but it certainly didn't have the character. The paint, the furniture, the decorations-- all were too worn to seem new, too new-fangled to seem antique. Then again, very little seemed truly old in this country. 

It was still five minutes before their arranged meeting-time, so he decided to look around. The children's section he afforded no more than a glance-- too colourful, too childish, too many toddlers with too many toys. To the right, though, were taller shelves with tomes that looked decidedly more like nonfiction. Closer inspection revealed he'd guessed correctly, and that they used Dewey Decimal, which should be familiar enough. He wandered back outward, uncertain of the time, and that was when he saw Hannah, curled up by one of the shelves.

It was a shorter shelf, in front of the nonfiction; he glanced at the titles and saw one or two he recognised as fiction for older children. Hannah's fingers were tracing the shelf lightly, her eyes flickering quickly between titles, a short stack already beside her. "Hannah?"

She startled. "Oh. Hello."

"How long have you been here?"

She squinted, seemingly doing mental arithmetic. "I got here... fifteen minutes before we were to meet?"

"About ten minutes, then." He glanced down at the books. Quite the stack for such a short time. "Anything interesting there?"

"I don't know."

Fair enough, he supposed. "Do you come here a lot?"

"I guess so," she said, and gathered up her stack, steadying it under her chin. "I'll go check these out." 

Hannah toddled toward the front desk, and Luke ran a hand through his hair. There really was something a little bit off about the girl. She almost seemed to deflect every attempt to get to know her better, and it left him unsettled every time. And yet she didn't seem unfriendly. 

Still, it was better than certain children, he supposed. Like that one girl in "future" London with her ridiculous instant crush; even if it added only a trivial distance, somehow he still hoped she was still those extra miles under the city. Or however far deep it had been.

"Han-nah! Adventure Boy!"

Luke sighed, filled with foreboding, and got up. 

Penny had her hands on her hips and was already glaring at Hannah, who was carrying her stack of books to an empty table. "Rookie mistake, Cartwright. You can't leave her in a library unattended."

"I am perfectly safe in a library unattended," Hannah objected, opening up her backpack.

"Cartwright?" Luke asked.

"Haven't you read any Sherlock Holmes?"

Luke furrowed his brows, thinking back-- then scowled. "An Irregular? I at least rank a Watson!"

"Well, at least you're a cultured weirdo," Penny said, sounding obscurely satisfied. "Shall we have at it, then?"

"Just a moment." Hannah was almost finished wedging an improbably tall stack of books into an improbably small backpack. Luke had a fleeting thought that she was probably excellent at block puzzles.

"For god's sake, Hannah--"

Hannah wedged two books in and pulled out a notebook. "Done."

Penny sighed dramatically. "It's project time, people! Luke, you and I will check out the adult history section. Hannah gets the children's so that she might finish before the two of us have to drag her away."

"That's-- probably a fair point, actually," said Hannah.

"Just _go_ ," said Penny, giving her a shove. "C'mon, Watson, the 900s are this way."

Luke followed her, with some trepidation. "Now let's see," she said, "it's usually on the shelf over here..."

She knelt down to peer at the titles more closely, and he followed suit. "You have a whole _shelf_ of this?" he blurted out, incredulous. It seemed somewhat disproportionate.

Penny looked at him strangely, and tapped the shelf above it. He surveyed the titles with dismay.

"There's more on the next shelf," she said, "but you have to squint to read it from down here, and that's mostly Civil War stuff, anyway."

"Oh my god," said Luke.

"Welcome to America," said Penny. "Eyes forward, now. What've we got here? Benjamin Franklin? That's got to be too specific."

Luke's heart sank. "Why are there so many Thomases? And why do they have so many books about them?"

"That's Jefferson and Paine, dummy. God save you when we get to the Adamses. Here, this one looks general enough." She pulled out a volume simply titled 'The American Revolution'. "C'mon, make yourself useful."

"What's 'Valley Forge'?"

"What's--" She stopped. "Hang on, you're from England. What _do_ they teach you about the American Revolution over there?"

"It's called the _American War of Independence_ ," said Luke.

"And?"

"That's approximately it!"

" _What?!_ " Penny threw up her hands. "But-- it was the first time your empire suffered a major defeat!"

"Not really..."

"We sparked revolutions around the world!"

"Mostly the French again, they're always causing trouble."

"It was the founding of our country!"

"Wasn't of ours," Luke pointed out.

"Oh my God," said Penny.

"What is it?" said Hannah.

"What are you doing back here already?"

"This is all the kids' section had," said Hannah, gesturing to the pile of thin books in her arms, "and this is the relevant encyclopedia," she finished, gesturing to the larger tome they balanced atop. "You're not done yet?"

"I was distracted by Luke being an uncultured swine."

"Hey!"

"It turns out he doesn't know anything about the American Revolution," said Penny.

"Right, for some reason, my British history classes focused a lot more on _British_ history," snapped Luke.

"Huh. That makes sense." Hannah knelt beside them, eyes scanning the shelves with improbable speed. "Here. And this one. I don't think we're going to need anything just on Washington. That one's all about the Constitution. This one's all politics. That one's just trash. And now we're into the Adams administration." Hannah stood. "Are we going to go read now?"

"...I guess that sounds about right," said Penny, sounding mildly put out. She got back up, and Luke followed them back to the table, still feeling defensive and annoyed. It wasn't as if he hadn't paid attention in history. They just hadn't mentioned it! 

Hannah dropped her pile of books on the table with a quite audible thump, and Penny swiped the stack of children's books from the middle. "All right, since Luke is starting from scratch here, he can get the kids' books--"

"Hey!"

"It might be best anyway," said Hannah, frowning. "I don't think they like it when we put in too much detail."

"At least he's not one of the five-paragraph essay types," said Penny, and Hannah darkened like a thunderstorm.

"Hmm?"

"This is my topic," said Hannah. "This is a sentence about how relatable my topic is. This is an extra sentence you can be flexible with. These are the three points I am going to make in my essay. Now, I am going to make my three points."

Luke watched, bewildered, as Hannah sat up straighter, more annoyed than he'd have imagined her capable of being. "This is the point I am going to talk about in this paragraph. This is supporting detail one. This is supporting detail two. This is supporting detail three. This is the point I was going to make in this paragraph."

Luke shot a bewildered look at Penny. "Then two more paragraphs, exactly like that, but with different points," Penny confirmed.

"This is the topic of the essay. These are the three points I just made. Two sentences so you can exercise your creativity. This is where you can really let your cleverness shine through. In conclusion, this was the topic of the essay." Hannah slumped back down, folding her arms with a scowl. "It is _stupid_."

"It's the water torture of the writing world," Penny agreed. 

"You're really serious?"

"Once I got docked a grade for writing about my three favorite books when they asked me to write about my one favorite book," said Hannah. "School writing is stupid."

"That sounds awful," said Luke, with feeling. Now that he thought about it, a lot of the comments on the one paper he'd turned in thus far were making a lot more sense. "I thought I was in enough trouble with your crazy lack of u's."

"U is a stupid letter and it looks funny when you put it everywhere," said Penny.

"U is a perfectly legitimate letter and aren't we supposed to be reading or something?"

"Well, if you insist," said Penny.

"I guess we have to decide how much we're going to be writing about?" said Hannah. "Like, the scope? I think he wants a broad summary?"

"You could honestly probably just make it up out of what you already know and be fine," said Penny. "These classes don't teach _anything_."

"We still need sources," said Hannah. "Proper attribution is vital to all scholastic pursuits."

"See," sighed Penny, "this is why I'm stuck with you little weirdos."

Penny definitely struck Luke as the weirdest of this group, but he raised his eyebrows, wondering where this was going.

"You're the only people in this entire wretched school with any respectable vocabulary," she said, and slouched over the table. "In which assessment I include most of the teachers."

"That isn't fair at all!" Hannah cried.

Penny shot Luke a challenging look.

"I haven't _met_ most of this wretched school," Luke defended.

"I still take your choice of adjective as agreement."

Luke had to admit, in his heart of hearts, that it very possibly was. He just hadn't got around to faulting it academically yet. Though of course, he thought, it was a foregone conclusion. They seemed so far behind in maths, so laser-focused and blatantly biased in history, and he wasn't even going to start on what passed for their English. He sighed and stared down at the book. Reading it seemed easier than thinking about _school_.

In the end, he got halfway down the stack (half the comments on Benedict Anold were blatantly sheer spite) before Penny poked him in the forehead with a pencil. "Hey, bookworm, I'm glad to see you're remedying your deficiencies, but I've got to go."

Luke looked at the clock; two hours had passed, somehow. "Right. I think we've got a pretty good start, at least. We can take the books home and talk about it next time. That all right, Hannah?"

Hannah didn't reply; looking more closely, she was several centimeters into an alarmingly thick tome, eyes skittering down the page at a quite respectable rate. Penny sighed and poked her between the eyes with her pencil. Luke began to understand where she might have developed her boorish habit.

"Gah!" 

"Sardin. The time."

Hannah looked at the clock. "Oh, Mom is going to pick me up soon."

"So we'll take the books home and talk about it in class," said Penny, putting on an exaggerated display of patience.

"Oh, okay." Hannah nodded, and began to stack the books she was interested in.

"Do you see what I've had to put up with?" Penny sighed. "Every year since I've been in this school, we've been in the same class. Dense as a lead post and _still the smartest other person here._ "

"Who makes a post out of lead?" Hannah retorted. 

"Apparently your mum and dad," Penny shot back. Luke wondered at her use of the word 'mum', but it seemed a strange question to ask.

"It's a terrible metaphor, you should stop defending it." Hannah slipped on her backpack and stood. "I'll see you on Monday." She toddled over to the checkout counter.

"Bye," said Penny, taking her own pack. "Well, it's been lovely, Watson, but I've other things to do with my weekend. How're you getting home?"

Luke had thought about that. At home, he'd have walked, but at the moment, he was a little leery of all the strange alleys and corners he could get caught at. Was a weekend safe? They'd hardly be likely to respect his right to leisure time, but it was likely they'd be busy watching sports or trying to commit other crimes or something. Still. "I'll take the bus, I think."

"I'll be walking. Probably not your way. Well, see you around." Penny gave him a jaunty wave and left.

Luke looked down at his books, and at their stack of discards, and sighed. It wasn't the worst way he'd spent an afternoon. Still, it was tea-time, he was alone, and it was another day without a letter in the post. He wondered when he could plausibly hope to get one back. The international mail seemed to run fairly quickly. A week? Two? There was a chance he might survive that long.

Two he hadn't read yet, and one he had that might come in handy. He gathered up his own books and headed for the front desk.

"I see you're working on a history project," said the librarian. "Did you find everything you were looking for?"

Answers flashed through his head. Yes. No. Everything he was likely to. But then again... 

"D'you happen to have anything on puzzles?"

\--


	5. Chapter 5

\--

"'Can't talk to animals' my foot," Luke muttered, opening the back door. His mother shouldn't be home yet, which would give him time to change his shirt. Hopefully the scrape he felt on his cheek wasn't too bad. He should've known better than to chase after the stupid animal, but he'd hoped it had a better notion of escape routes than he did. Then again, it hadn't managed to get away from the brutes in the first place. And of course it had run off without a word of thanks. This stupid country. Bloody ingrates, the lot of them.

Luke was starting to get a feel for why grown-ups swore. It wasn't gentlemanly, but it certainly made him feel better, and other words seemed to lack something of their pure descriptive power.

The house was as quiet as Luke expected, and he sighed in relief as he headed for the stairs. He passed the front door, and checked the mail that had scattered on the floor, hoping, as he did every day, for some reply--

\--and there, amid the bills and gaudy advertisements, was a letter addressed to him.

Luke tossed the rest on the side-table and flew up the stairs with his prize. His satchel landed on his bed, and his behind hit his desk chair a little harder than was strictly wise, but the envelope was open, and there it was, the handwriting he wanted to see second-most in all the world.

_Dear Luke,_

_I'm sorry to hear about your school. I've just started in one too, which I hope I like better._

"A school?" Luke murmured. He couldn't say that struck much hope in him at the moment. 

_I haven't really been here very long, but so far the girls seem nice. A couple might be a bit cold, but I don't think there's anyone I dislike yet, or who really dislikes me. Although, as my roommate Tori might say, who knows what might happen once I give it time._

"Who is this Tori?" Luke muttered to himself, but it didn't look like Flora has seen fit to expound on that subject any further. Letters could be so frustrating. 

_But you're probably wondering why I'm here and not at home,_ the letter continued, and Luke mentally congratulated Flora for her foresight. _And it has a lot to do with your other questions. Or, I'm pretty sure that it does. He hasn't exactly told me anything._

"Get to the _point_ ," Luke groaned; it wasn't charitable, but it wouldn't hurt her, as she wasn't here.

_We weren't exactly watching the news for what would happen. Or at least I wasn't. I honestly didn't even think about the Prime Minister once we'd escaped. I assumed he'd resigned or been ousted already-- I suppose you did, too. We were too worried about the Professor and Clive and the gigantic hole in the city, and then you had to leave, and I just didn't notice that I hadn't heard about him resigning._

She was right; he hadn't thought about it, either. Why would he? Hawks had been the least important part of what was going on. He imagined the man always had been. Perhaps that was what had driven him to become the Prime Minister, out of spite.

_A little while after you left, though, things started to happen. The Professor came home one night looking a little disheveled. He was acting strangely, too; he wouldn't talk much. I didn't think a lot about it, but the next day I heard that his office was broken into. In Gressenheller! What sort of ill-bred monster breaks into a university?_

Luke could think of more examples now than he ever could before, but still, a _university_ \-- that was practically sacrilege. He didn't dwell on his reaction, though; he was devouring the letter too eagerly.

_I tried to get him to tell me what was going on, but he just said there there and everything's all right and all that other nonsense adults tell you when they want you to stop bothering them and go be nice and stupid and happy somewhere else._

Luke frowned at the cynicism, which was odd for Flora, and striking an uncomfortable chord.

_But when the house caught fire, that wasn't going to work anymore._

"The WHAT!" Luke yelped. He read the sentence over again, just to be sure. The _house_! Had caught _fire_!

_I don't know how bad it was. I haven't been able to see it since. I was in the kitchen baking, and it WAS NOT me-- the smoke came in from another room, and I checked the oven twice, and by the time I realized it really wasn't me, the smoke was thick and the room was getting hot. I was scared to leave the kithen because it was so hot and there was fire between me and the door, so I had to go out the window. Lucky the Professor found me then. I don't know how the fire happened so fast. I think they might have used petrol. I don't know how I missed that, but I was trying very hard to make a cake, so I probably wouldn't have noticed even if they'd broken in._

_At any rate, after that, the Professor took me directly off to this school. All he would tell me was that he intended to find whoever was doing this, and to stop them. Honestly, I have doubts that the 'who' will take much detecting at this point. Though I suppose it could be some entirely unrelated matter. Whoever it is, I don't know how he means to stop them, though. And of course he'd never tell me. He probably wouldn't even tell you, though I'd love it if you'd try._

Luke was torn. He wanted to know everything, but-- what would the Professor tell him? And what questions would he ask Luke in return? How would he even get a letter to him, at this point?

He rubbed his forehead. He needed time to process this, but he couldn't stop reading.

_At any rate, I'll let you know if I hear anything, though I honestly doubt that I will. I'll do my best, though. Maybe I'll have to do some investigating of my own. I'll include my new address on the envelope, and at the end of this letter, just in case. It has an awfully long way to travel. Please let me know how things are going with you, too. Even if it's not good, and there's nothing I can do about it, I want to know anyway._

_With fond regards,_  
Flora Reinhold  
P.S. You'll be happy to learn there's a class on cookery here. I hope never to set anything on fire unintentionally again.  
P.P.S. Tori is very nice, but I feel like she doesn't quite believe anything I say about anything that's ever happened to me before, and there's something incredibly lonely about that. Please keep writing so I don't start disbelieving it all myself. 

Luke let out a long breath at that, letting his head gently hit the back of his chair as he stared at the ceiling. She was right about that last bit. She was exactly right.

Bill Hawks still Prime Minister. The house on fire. Flora in a boarding school. And the Professor... the Professor needed his _help_ , and he was stuck _here_. With these _stupid_ children in this _stupid_ school.

He gritted his teeth and sat back up, grabbing pen and paper. The least he could do was write Flora back this instant.

_Dear Flora,_

_I'm very glad you're all right! But I hope you and the Professor will be. I can't believe someone set the house on fire! Please let me know ANYTHING you hear about what's happening. This not knowing really is the worst. At least we're in it together, now._

And that stung, not to be the special confidante anymore. Not to at least know more than Flora. God, no wonder she'd gone to such lengths to tag along.

_I hope your school is better than mine. Mine is honestly pretty lousy. Most of the classes are boring, and some of the students are awful. There's this one named Eli who won't stop making fun of me. He has this friend named Don too, and it seems like half the week, they can't think of anything better to do than try to make me miserable. They aren't very creative at all. Most of the others just think I'm weird. Which is all right as long as they leave me alone. I have to do a history project with two named Hannah and Penny. Penny kind of reminds me of Don Paolo. She hates most of the people in this school (not that I can blame her sometimes) and she thinks a lot of herself and not much of anyone else. But she's smart, and funny when she's not being hurtful. I'm not sure whether or not she actually means to be as spiteful as she is. Hannah is nice. She's off in her own world most of the time, and it's really hard to get to know her or get her attention. She and Penny have known each other a long time. I think they're best friends, but between Hannah being so out of it and Penny being so catty, it's kind of hard to tell. They're as close to friends as I have here, anyway._

And that was kind of sad. He sighed. Enough about his school.

_So what is your school like? If you've changed your address, it's a boarding school? Probably for all girls? It's not one of those where they only teach embroidery and cooking, is it? There's no way the Professor would do that to you. It sounds like you like your roommate at least. That's good. At least I don't have to live with any of the people from my school. What is she like?_

What else was there to say? Luke tapped his pen against his teeth, looking back at Flora's letter. The second postscript.

_I know what you mean about no one believing you. Everyone in class thinks I'm crazy or a liar. Or a crazy liar. I'm pretty sure my teachers don't think the Professor is even real. I'm not sure my classmates really believe England is even real. Sometimes I'm not sure anymore, either. It's all so different and so very far away. But I know that it was, no matter what they say. I know it, and that's what matters. At least Hannah and Penny know the Professor is real, because their parents are with the university. That's probably one reason I like them. I'm stranded in this whole other world, and it really does your head in._

He sighed. _But it did happen, and we can remember that no matter what. I will write to you as often as I can and I hope you will do the same. Especially if you hear something. But even if you don't. I miss you. I miss everything, really._

He wanted to go back, but with the Professor away, the house burned-- was it even still there to go back to? Was it lost forever?

God, he wished his parents had never dragged him to this stupid country.

_So I will finish this letter so I can get it in the post as soon as I can. I hope you are doing well and you write me back soon and nothing else catches on fire. Good luck with the cooking classes, and all the rest of them too. Someday I will come back and I will eat whatever you make. Even if it is fish loaf. But please don't ever make the fish loaf ever again. I'm not sure whatever that plant you used in it was actually an herb. And the scales were awful to get out of my teeth. I would eat it anyway but you can do much better. I believe in you._

_Sincerely yours,  
Luke Triton_

Right; the stamps were downstairs, but he had his own supply of envelopes. He started to fold the letter, then paused, as a thought struck him.

_P.S. Sorry I brought up the fish loaf again. You were trying really hard and you were so upset at how it turned out. I'll try harder to forget about it. But I want to remember, even the bad times. They were still good, because we all were still together._

Ugh, how soppy. He folded the letter quickly and stuffed it away, before his thoughts had to linger on the topic too long. Even though it wouldn't make a difference, he hurried down to get it in the outgoing mail.

"Oh, Luke!" said his mother. She was putting in an earring, using the mirror at the table by the door for guidance. "How was your day?"

Luke opened his mouth, and closed it, having no idea how to answer that. _Well, school was stupid, two jerks shoved me into a bramble, my old house was set on fire, Bill Hawks is still Prime Minister, and the Professor's on the run. How was my day?_

"Brenda!" There was his father, pulling on one of his good suits. "They're just pulling into the drive."

"Right," said his mother, and smiled at him. "Luke, we're going out to that dinner, remember?"

He did not, but nodded anyway.

"Your dinner's in the oven, and you can warm it up whenever you like. We'll be back later tonight. Take care!"

She took her purse, his father opened the door, and they were gone, just like that. He stared at the closed door for a moment.

_So how was your day?_

He shook his head, and headed for the calendar, to write the only answer he could come up with. "I STILL WANT TO BE HOME-SCHOOLED."

He capped the pen again, surveying his work. "Not that it matters," he grumbled. But it was an opinion he refused to back down from.

\--


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am changing American/world history rather dramatically for this piece. Pointing it out feels like the responsible thing to do. It generally boils down to "what if when the British made treaties, they proceeded to abide by them?" Which is... essentially the opposite of anything that happened in the real world, but seems appropriate for the Laytonverse.

\--

Luke had faced worse dread than this. He was enumerating the occasions in his mind. Emmy grabbing him in a cave. A tower crumbling underneath him. Launching into the air on a vehicle that had been built for the ground. He had no shortage of options.

Somehow, it wasn't helping very much with sitting across Mrs. Shavers in this stupid plastic chair. Which made no sense at all.

"So, Luke," she said, lacing her fingers together, "we've gotten your test results."

It had been weeks, now, which was forever in school-time, and it took him a moment to remember what tests she meant. "Those aptitude tests?"

"Yes. You did quite well." She smiled a little. "I imagine you've been a little bit... bored... in a few of your classes."

This felt treacherous. "Maybe a few," he allowed warily.

"Unfortunately, in reading and math, you're a little bit ahead of most of the rest of the class."

This still felt like a trap. He wasn't sure how he was expected to react, so he didn't.

"But that is why we have our breakout groups," she continued. "Luke, from now on, you'll be in group six of our reading class. Ms. Vicks will let you know what group you'll be assigned to in her math class this afternoon."

"All right," Luke answered. He'd noticed that she'd broken the class up into smaller groups for certain tasks, but had only suspected it was based on ability. Most of the gradations seemed pretty fine.

"We'll actually be splitting into groups today, so you can go on and sit with group 6 in that corner. Class will be starting in just a few minutes."

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, and picked up his bag. He took one of the seats and pulled a newspaper from his bag. He hadn't been much of a Times reader back home, and he could only get them once his father discarded them-- even his father's delivery seemed to be delayed by a few days, unless this country had somehow wrecked his reading speed-- but he pored over them for every scrap of information he could get. Which was approximately nothing. Bill Hawks was still Prime Minister. Clive Dove was still in gaol. Though there was something a little bit odd in that article, a brief mention of a fight amongst prisoners. Hawks and his party were still pushing the same bill they'd been pushing before all the happenings; something about industry regulations and international trade. Luke was doing his best to understand it, but it was hard to find any meaningful context, and the concepts were arcane in a way that made his mind want to break away and run after five minutes of wrestling with them. A lecture series at Gressenheller. The clues were thin on the ground.

"Well, this is deja vu," said Penny Bishop.

Luke looked up; Penny stood there, a hand on her hip, and he could see Hannah plodding their way. "Group six," he said, feeling decidedly unsurprised.

"Naturally. It's about time they figured out you belonged here."

"Oh, hello again," said Hannah, sitting down. "You're in our group now?"

"It's just the three of us," said Luke, "isn't it?"

"Who else?"

Luke paused. "How about maths?"

"We have a group of our own as well," said Penny. "Thank god I talked Hannah out of dropping down a notch."

"I wasn't sure I understood the long division," Hannah protested.

"You had it two weeks later and you would have been bored out of your mind for the rest of your school life."

"It's possible that's true."

"Anyway, I'm rather guessing we'll see you there, too," said Penny. "You're stuck with us now, Cartwright."

"Well," said Luke, "that could certainly be considerably worse. And I am also still a Watson."

"I'll say it could be. The rest of 'em are dull as dishwater. Then there's the absolute cretin squad."

"Most of them are perfectly fine," said Hannah.

Penny rolled her eyes. "But there's no arguing the cretin squad."

"I don't like it when they're mean to the teachers," Hannah conceded. "But that's not a very nice name."

"They're not very nice people, Hannah!"

"Who's..." But Luke didn't really have to ask, did he? "Don and Eli?"

"Sometimes Mark and Li gang up with them too. But yes."

"That's good to know." It had usually been just Don and Eli, but if there were the potential for others...

"Oh, yes, watch out for those lot. They're aggressively stupid." The bell rang, and Luke swallowed his irritated "now you tell me". Not that a warning would have done him much good. He'd started off with a perfectly normal greeting and they'd immediately started mocking his accent. What he'd seen them trying to do to that alley-cat after school had only sealed the deal. He doubted there was any way he could've handled it any better if he'd been forewarned. He was increasingly uncertain there was any way he could handle it better now, but he tried not to think that way. Every puzzle had a solution.

Was every problem a puzzle?

Mrs. Shavers was calling roll; Luke pulled out his pencils and schoolbooks, calling out a "here" as was local custom when his name was called. Penny already looked bored; Hannah was playing with a pencil, engrossed in something Luke couldn't begin to fathom.

"And now for the Pledge," said Mrs. Shavers, and Luke stifled a groan. He always hoped she'd forget this part. There clearly wasn't any chance of it; the ritual was deeply ingrained. He wondered if there were professors who studied the strange and exotic customs of the British former colonies.

The class stood and placed their hands over their chests; Luke did that much as well, being, as the saying went, in Rome. It didn't feel right to recite the words. He practically had them memorised by now anyway.

"I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America."

Hannah and Penny were speaking, but sounded equally bored; Hannah was mumbling, and Penny affecting an exasperated singsong. It provided some hope that they wouldn't judge him too harshly if they noticed.

"And to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The 'one nation' bit always sounded a bit funny to him. What else would it be? He did remember something vague about some sort of internal strife, possibly between the British and Native states. He made a mental note to look into it, though he knew he'd probably just forget again.

That done, they were allowed to sit again. "All right, class," said Mrs. Shavers, "it's reading group day. I'll be beginning with group 1. The rest of you, begin reading the next chapter of your book."

Luke opened up his English book, then frowned; Hannah and Penny were getting up. "Come on," said Penny, and after a moment's hesitation, Luke followed. Mrs. Shavers made no comment, so he had to assume this was acceptable behavior. 

They settled down by the classroom's bookshelf. Hannah pulled out a book almost without looking, settling down on the floor immediately; Penny perused the shelves with a sigh. "I've already read all the decent ones," she complained.

Since no one was going to have the courtesy to explain, he asked. "What are you taking books from here for?"

"The stories in the textbook are short and boring," said Penny, and he couldn't disagree with that assessment. "We read one of these chapter books instead."

"One every week," said Hannah, not looking up from her book. "For the class, anyway."

"Huh." Luke took a look at the shelves. These were also rather young for him, but possibly not as stultifyingly so. A couple looked like they might at least be fun. "We just pick one and then-- what?"

"She has a sheet with some generic questions," said Penny. "She'll give some to you today, I assume. Boils down to did you read it and were you paying the slightest bit of attention. I imagine you're off scot-free for today's meetup..."

Well, it was an improvement from the textbook. But still... he glanced nervously at Don and Eli's table. They weren't looking this way, but they never seemed to be looking at him, and yet they always seemed to be paying attention. "Do they really have to... single us out like this?"

"Hmm?" Penny looked over at him. "It's not like it's announced or anything. They don't give you a tag saying Super Special Child."

They might as well do, Luke thought.

"Besides, what else are they supposed to do? Would you rather keep your head down and read that drivel every day?" Penny scoffed at that possibility, and turned back to the shelf, as if she'd just won the argument. 

Luke wasn't at all sure. He thought perhaps he could tolerate a little boredom if it meant less... singling out. But it wasn't as if he hadn't been already anyway. And it wasn't as if it would've satisfied the cretin squad. Nothing he'd tried yet had placated them. Or, nothing he was willing to do. If it took staying quiet while they threw rocks at any animal too slow to escape their sight... well, then, in that case, he'd just have to stick out.

But he didn't have to entirely enjoy it.

Had he ever really fit in, though? He'd had some friends in Misthallery, though few he could truly confide in. There had always been a sense that they lived in separate worlds. Especially with Arianna, despite that they were probably the closest. His father was the mayor, after all, and half the children in town ran with the black market. They met sometimes, cordially enough, and returned back home, to their own realities. There were things he couldn't quite talk about, with most of them. When he'd left the town, had he ever really looked back? Certainly not the way he was right now.

He could tell most everything to the Professor. A fair amount to Flora. Maybe Emmy, once upon a time. He knew he had to be careful with everyone else, though, even if he usually forgot about it. He was always saying the wrong thing to the wrong person and getting rewarded with the strangest looks. He was saying things he wasn't supposed to say, thinking about things he wasn't supposed to know or care about, being a person he wasn't supposed to be. Too old, too smart, too silly, too young. 

The bullies were new. The problem might not be.

He shook his head, trying to return to the moment, and picked a book from the shelf. Twin boys solving mysteries, sounded as likely as anything. He settled in to read, though his thoughts were inclined to drift elsewhere. Still, he'd managed a few chapters by the time Mrs. Shavers called for group 6.

Penny snapped her book shut with a sigh and immediately poked Hannah in the head with it. "Han-naaah..."

"Ow," said Hannah, blinking like a newly awakened owl at them. "What?"

"Group time, Hannah."

"Oh, okay." She closed her own book, marking her place with a finger, and stood. They made their way to the table, which had room for a considerably higher number of students, and sat down.

"Welcome, Luke," said Mrs. Shavers. "Let me explain how your new reading group works. Every week, you can choose a book from our library. You'll have one week to read it and answer these questions about it." She passed him a short pile of worksheets. "Let's start with Hannah..."

Luke read over the sheets as Hannah talked about her book-- though, "talked" was a fairly generous term. She gave detailed enough answers, but Mrs. Shavers had to prompt her for every one. And oddly enough, it was the last question that seemed to give her the most trouble. "What did you think of it?" Mrs. Shavers asked.

Hannah tilted her head. "I... liked it...?" As if she hadn't actually formed an opinion, and it took her actual effort to draw one forth.

Strange. Mrs. Shavers spent a little longer dragging further answers out of her ("Did you like the characters?" "I guess?") before moving on to Penny, who gave quick exasperated answers like she was bored with the whole exercise. Well, she was, of course. Penny was bored with everything, as far as Luke could tell. She could at least pretend to care, though, Luke thought. It was obvious how she was trying the teacher's patience.

"And for this week's spelling quiz," said Mrs. Shavers, and handed them further papers. "Now, Luke, you won't have had the chance to study this, so don't worry about how well you do on this one." She either ignored or didn't hear Penny's snort of derision. "I'll have a new word list for you every week."

Luke looked down at the study sheet and couldn't help but sympathize with Penny. "Agent"? "Item"? "Surrender"? Seriously? There were still some stupid American spellings he hadn't got the hang of, but this was absurd.

The "spelling quiz" was fill-in-the blank and absurdly easy (though Luke did find himself scratching out a couple of reputedly errant u's). Mrs. Shavers gathered up their papers and dismissed them back to their desks. Luke was troubled, but he wasn't sure why. "Is it always like this?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"That took... five minutes. And she... wasn't asking to us to _do_ much."

"Oh, yes, it's always like _that_ ," said Penny.

"What's wrong?" said Hannah.

"It's just..." Luke tapped his fingers against the desk. "It's like she's ignoring us." 

"Well, it's not like there's anything she can teach us."

"Penny..." Hannah remonstrated.

"It's true. We know already know enough to pass the year's test. We probably could've done it in kindergarten. She doesn't have to lift a finger and we'll do just fine. So of course she spends more time helping the people who actually need it. And we just fend for ourselves." Penny said it airily, but looked remarkably irritated. "What else could she offer us?"

Luke saw the logic, but... he wanted to learn, too. He wanted to be _taught_ , not just left alone to learn. Though he supposed there were worse alternatives as well.

Penny clapped him on the back. "No worries, Cartwright," she said, with surprising kindness. "Only a year or so. Then they _can't_ keep us here any longer."

"You call it 'middle school', right?" It struck Luke as a strange and childish phrase, but when in Rome. "Is it any better?"

"Well, you don't have any decent electives yet and the cliques are really starting to form," said Penny. "But on the other hand, they can't just shove us in a corner with some worksheets anymore. So... no."

"Delightful," grumbled Luke.

"Click?" said Hannah.

"C-l-i-q-u-e," said Penny.

"Oh, I thought that was 'kleek'."

"You thought wrong."

Hannah just shrugged.

Mrs. Shavers was still doing something in her office, and they weren't the only ones talking. "So, how's the math group?" he asked, fatalistically.

Penny opened a folder and handed him a worksheet. For a moment, Luke's heart leapt. Puzzles! A magic square!

...a nine-box magic square with a sum of fifteen. A few equations. And a frog-in-a-well puzzle.

_Dear Flora,_ he wrote in his head. _On the one hand, they have given me puzzles. On the other, they are all approximately ten picarats. Please send help._

He let his forehead fall to the desk.

"I swear to god there's a magic square on every one," said Penny. "It's like they think we'll have forgotten since last Thursday to put five in the center."

"It was fun a few years ago," said Hannah, "but they really do get awfully samey."

Luke lifted his head, and an eyebrow. "Would you perhaps be interested in some _real_ puzzles?"

Hannah looked vaguely intrigued; Penny looked suspicious, and both were saved from having to answer by the return of Mrs. Shavers.

No matter. If this was any indication-- Luke sighed.

They were going to have plenty of time.

\--


End file.
